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Noticed a friend installing voice mods for XCOM2. Alpha Protocol SIE voice pack, Alpha Protocol Scarlet Lake voice pack, Alpha Protocol Mike Thorton voice pack. Noticed an inexcusable lack of a Sis voice pack.

May the Fourth be with you

Taking the chaos spawn out for a walk: Ogre enforcing social distancing:

Additive dmg bonus: doesn't matter if the weapon has low base dmg as long as it's faster and thus has equal base dps. Just not so nice for attack abilites that cost non-replenishable resources. +30% is not something I would necessarily build around though. Unless I would be using stuff like Binding Roots all the time anyways. Could be a nice tank setup with a Stalker/something: keep enemies near you with Binding Roots and kill them a bit more quickly with 30% bonus. With a bashing shield that applies stuff like Bindnig Roots that could be done even without using any Ranger. But yeah - +100% was def. more interesting. I understand that it was nerfed - but that much was unreasonable I think. I would have reduced it to 50%, maybe 60% - not less.

I went to Kroger and the Covington package store today. It's only the second time I've left home in six weeks. Other than on foot that is. Kroger was fully stocked and not crowded I'm please to say. Not that I needed much. The liquor store was the opposite. The best bourbon they had was Maker's Mark. It's OK, I guess. I made a pitcher of whiskey sour using that, lemon juice, corn syrup, and grenadine. You are supposed to garnish that s--t with orange peel or lemon wedges. But I'm the only one here. Who the f--k am I trying to impress? I'm sitting on the porch smoking a full rack of beef ribs and power drinking. Some days you just need to get trashed.

Parkinson's dyskinesia mechanism explained My Mum was an artist who acquired Parkinson's when she was older, and so had to stop working. It's a helpless feeling not being able to fix that, or counter the effects of the medication. Hopefully they can develop better treatments now.

My ongoing peeve with Reputation gain (i.e. the pre-defined meaning and intention of conversation options) vs what I actually intended the option to mean. Currently, in PoE(2), the reputation system is, as in most (all?) other games, static. You choose Conversation Option A, and it has already been given a meaning by the writers/devs, no matter what meaning you and your PC may put in it. Example: In BoW, I convinced Neriscyrlas to find respite and release herself to the Void. My PC (paladin, dimplomatic, good) took this direction with the best intentions, since there's no option to release Neris to the Wheel (that I could find). But after playing the same dialogue sequence with Reptutations in conversations turned on, I found that this was in fact the "Cruel" option! Why? Why would this me more cruel than killing her? Well, sure, you're telling her that she's already dead and have been living an utter pointless existence for centuries, but is that really cruel? It wasn't for me, until I played it with the pre-set meaning of conversation options releaved. What I think would solve this problem, is a way to change the Reputation, i.e. the intention of conversation opotions. The example I just gave could just as well have been Honest, or even Benevolent (a peaceful solution), which was the way "I" meant it. These static "choices" breaks the immersion, restricts your ability to RP the character the way you envisioned it. You want to RP? Well, I as my character would have said this, but according to the rep-gain my character must say that in order to be aligned with the reputation-mechanic-RP aspect, if you catch my drift. You'll end up with having to pick choices just to align with the "correct" rep gains, or choose the "wrong" convo/rep options to align with what you would say, thus ending up with an ingame-personality that does not reflect your RP. Am I making sense? So, please, in PoE3, look into the possibility of being able to change the Reputation, i.e. intention/meaning of certain conversation options. E.g. dropdown for [chose your intention], where it makes sense, where you can select between a few options. I think that this would make the RP aspects of the game a whole lot more rewarding, since you can be much more dynamic in the way you approach conversations. Again, this is not something particular to PoE2, but PoE 1 and 2 are the RPGs I've spent the most time playing and enjoyed. Also, I do think that the PoE devs are more receptible to suggestions than, say, Dragon Age devs would be (simply due to the more corporate, top-down nature of how Bioware/DA is managed).

Or someone thought: "If that George Lucas can remake an Akira Kurosawa film and make a multimillion dollar franchise, then so can I "

Nope, no dwarven treasure hunters. The game didn't do well enough for them to look into the extra warbands that were added through wyrdstone magazine. And as it is a GW license, anything that was added after they discontinued the miniature game, may have been added by Tuomas and be as good as official, but it won't be covered by official licenses. Human Mercenaries, Chaos Cult, Skaven, Sisters of Sigmar, Vampires, and Witch Hunters. That's the warbands in the game.

Gothics, Dark Souls, KOTORs, Dragon Ages, Jade Empire, Witcher1&2.

Even a facebash I would say.

Incidentally... ^ Torque's (Snake lady's) voice actress on Twitter.

Issue is that saying something isn't simply sending information. It's also receiving. Something you meant as benevolent might be perceived as cruel by others. The game tracks the latter as do other games as well. The final result so to say. Although I am interested in being able to choose disposition, it does pose issues in the implementation. Because it all boils down to intent on your (our) part, but that may not be the final result. And truth be told the result is what matters, because it's how other perceive you. And as there isn't anything like charisma in this game, or any sort of social skill (other than the locked down diplomacy and such, which don't really suit imo) there is no proper way to measure whether you are actually capable of steering your intent to be believable based on in game stats. For instance in the beginning of the game where you have to get the pouch back from Moheka you have the option of saying "nice shiner" as a joke to Rinco. Which is marked as Clever disposition. But depending on circumstance and what type of person you're talking to this might be perceived as mean/cruel.

Researchers develop groundbreaking new rocket-propulsion system.

Everything after The Empire Strikes Back sucks

Battle Beyond the Stars wasnt Star Wars but it was a fun riff on THE SEVEN SAMURAI, but in Space (with Robert Vaughan playing more or less the same character he played in that other THE SEVEN SAMURAI remake, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN...)

Sure, that happens, thanks for giving Phenomenum a "call" , and clearing that up.

Star Trek

@Frykas: unfortunately @MaxQuest has diappeared completely from these forums (or from the whole internet it seems). And that's the only channel we have to contact him (besides Nexus). @Phenomenum was the other forum member who coded the Community Patch (and he's still here from time to time). I made the custom icons for all passives for the CP but didn't touch the mechanics and didn't alter any JSON files. So I would give @Phenomenum a call (which is basically done by me tagging him ;)).

Nominating Zephyr as the worst written character 2020. They took an interesting concept: a human who (probably as a teenager) was turned through the gene-therapy into a hybrid, broke free and joined the skirmishers, and now tries to find out who she was before they turned her into a hybrid soldier. And they turned it into "Look, this character has an overdone Aussie accent. LOL!1!1" (Yes, you can feel that the writer thought LOL with capital letters, multiple exclamation marks and typos for some of those exclamation marks). She actually gets a two-part barracks dialogue with Terminal, where Terminal (being the idiot she is (another character concept wasted by hack writers)) makes fun of Zephyr's accent. Not once, but you get two interactions because one wasn't enough to underline that hey, we added an Aussie accent! It's as if they had someone who can write supervise part of the work (Gray Phoenix investigation, dialogue between certain characters, the character backgrounds, some of the archive texts) - the parts they felt were important for telling the story they wanted - and then let the writing team fill the rest of the needed text with every stupid idea they threw out there over beer and pizza. It reminds me of the difference in quality in Guild Wars 2, where the Asura and Sylvari had interesting writing, while the Norn were bland as can be, while the Humans were cringe worthy. Or Old Republic, with the great writing for some classes and the, well, writing for others. Especially the drop in quality for Smugglers past act 1, where you could tell that they just needed two more acts written and be done. And then the intern who wrote those actually did leave, and everyone who had made snarky remarks "Did they let the intern write this?" felt like an idiot, because they had never expected the answer to be "yes". Now with my dislike for Terminal, you'd think I'd nominate her, but at least there was an attempt to write the character. A failed attempt mostly, but an attempt non the less. The girl who watched Advent kill her parents, then got taken in by a lady, only to have Advent kill the foster mother as well. Buried underneath rubble when Advent razed the Haven she had been living in, she was dug out by the Resistance. All this death and destruction changed her demeanor. Her clown attitude is a coping mechanism for all the death and destruction in her life, and her suicidal tendencies. And there is a dialogue with Godmother where she seems to halfheartedly reach out to talk about it. And there is a dialogue with Blueblood where he addresses the situation. But if you don't get those to trigger (and I for example didn't have Blueblood on my first playthrough), then all you see is an annoying clown. And that is a failure on the writers' part, but the attempt was there. Zephyr though they didn't even try. Her in-mission comments add nothing. They say nothing about her character. They are just delivered with an Aussie accent. With Claymore and Shelter I understand why they didn't try. The characters are boring. But at least Shelter has some comments about psionics. If you want to be generous, you could even recognize a hint of his reluctance to use his abilities. Torque, Axiom, and Verge are great characters. Cherub is good, but I understand why he can be annoying. It isn't easy to write a mentally 5 year old in the body of a soldier. He knows how to fight, but socially and all the non-combat knowledge is underdeveloped. Godmother works as a character. The veteran of the squad who has been fighting since the aliens first invaded, and who doesn't really have a life anymore beyond being den-mother to whatever unit she is with. There is nothing to stand out in the writing, but some characters don't need to. Blueblood is similar. As the cop of the team, he just fits in with the game setting. And Patchwork exists. Amazing character gameplay wise. Had to count how many characters I had mentioned and work out who I had missed to remember to list her. Jane Kelly is there to drive the plot. She fills the role of the councilman from previous games. It means she doesn't get to have much personality development, but it is better that way. The text she gets is required for the plot, not to showcase her as a person. So I am happy they refrained from distracting from the plot with character building. Whisper has some good writing when he welcomes new squad members. It is the part where you get to see that he is the person who is trying his best to make Chimera Squad work. He goes out of his way to know everyone on his squad and make everyone feel comfortable in this pilot project. And during random missions he is what Bradford wasn't: someone who gives you one line of your objective and leaves you in peace. Story missions he can get annoying though. They had to make those stand out and give him extra text. They let the hacks write it.

I'm sure all seven "never Trump" republicans will vote for Amash and ensure Trump wins this years farce.

Is the world a more f----d up place now? Or, was it always completely f---d up and we're just more aware of it now? Bah. What's the f-----g difference. We all have a lot to drink about.

I can't see how it's desirable for the difficulty to swing from 'extremely difficult' to 'cakewalk' based on foreknowledge; that just seems like bad game design. Consider the Soulsbourne games - learning your enemies' moves and abilities is vital, but the combat doesn't become trivial because these are action games that depend on your hand-eye coordination to utilise your foreknowledge. That obviously isn't the case for CRPGs. If preparation is all that makes the difference, the combat is pointless.

I like it that you won't find a Carsomyr +5 in Deadfire and immediately know that you have to reroll a Paladin right now.

Gah, my fishing license expired 31 Mar! A neighbor tells me I can renew it online and just print it out here so I have to check that out, otherwise I need to go back to Walmart. I use a small (6') cast net to catch minnows for bait. Failing that Ill go to the gas station and buy a cup of nighcrawlers.

Gaemz:

Try out VirtualBox. It's free just need an .ISO to load the Operating System you use in it. Elsewise if you use windows 10 pro on your home PC you can spin up a virtual in Hyper V which is built in to win 10. If your work pc is infecting your home pc... that seems crazy.. Your IT people suck. Get a good AV that stops ransomware / crypto like Eset or something.

Is anyone else slightly annoyed that Bobby Null isn't a programmer? He has the perfect last name for it, but here he is mucking about as a lead designer.

Okay, these are clearly days for discoveries. Trying to do the thing desclibed in post above and testing it I made another discovery and found out there is much simpler way to achieve what CP tried to with stacking flanked with CB, that is to have -2 (in vanilla -3) malī to be added to -10 Def from flanked (from blinded) so you don't have to overcome it with subsequent hits. And instead, for it to be added whem hitting enemy with CB. Apparently there are three not as I assumed two values that matter. "GameDataObjects": [{ "$type": "Game.GameData.StatusEffectGameData, Assembly-CSharp", "DebugName": "Confounding_Blind_SE_Deflection", "ID": "b9362648-2d0d-4f57-b67b-a3be15d12f30", "Components": [{ "$type": "Game.GameData.StatusEffectComponent, Assembly-CSharp", "StatusEffectType": "Deflection", "OverrideDescriptionString": -1, "OverrideDescriptionStringTactical": -1, "UseStatusEffectValueAs": "None", "BaseValue": -10, "DynamicValue": { "Stat": "None", "SkillDataID": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000", "ClassID": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000", "MultiplyBy": 1, "Operator": "Add" }, "KeywordsIDs": [], "DurationType": "UseDurationTime", "Duration": 15, "MaxStackQuantity": 0, "ApplicationBehavior": "UseLongerDurationIfAlreadyApplied", "ApplicationType": "ApplyOnStart", "IntervalRateID": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000", "StackedChildrenApplyEffects": "false", "InclusionConditions": { "Operator": 0, "Components": [] }, "ApplicationPrerequisites": { "Conditional": { "Operator": 0, "Components": [] } }, "TriggerAdjustment": { "TriggerOnEvent": "OnDamaged", "TriggerOffEvent": "None", "ValidateWithAttackFilter": "false", "ParamValue": 0, "ValueAdjustment": -3, "DurationAdjustment": 0, "ResetTriggerOnEffectTimeout": "false", "MaxTriggerCount": 8, "IgnoreMaxTriggerCount": "false", "RemoveEffectAtMax": "false", "ChanceToTrigger": 1 I added additional "enters" in code to show them more clearly. those values are: BaseValue, ValueAdjustment and MaxTriggerCount. Value from BaseValue is applied on the attack that aplies the effect. ValueAdjustment (for this ability) is applied on every hit even on the hit that applies the BaseValue and the ability effect. MaxTriggerCount limits how many times ValueAdjustment can be added. So to make it that you start to lower enemy Def with every hit even when applying CB we just set it to: -10/-3/8 (BaseValue/ValueAdjustmnet/MaxTriggerCount) as this causes our first hit with the ability (like at the tip of the sword) to aply -13 (-10 BaseValue, -3 ValueAdjustment) malus and if dual-wielding or just next hit if not dual-wielding to apply -3 (ValueAdjustment) thus using the -10 BaseValue to alredy be on par with malus from Flanked and then supress it with adding -3 for each hit. If that is too fast we can just as easily change it to: -10/-2/12, both will cap at -34 Def only in diffrent number of subsequent hits. I will upload it and try to contact the fine lads from CP as maybe they'd like to use this. Or maybe I'll find out what I missed about stacking flanking. I'll post the link to this tiny mod of mine here as well. It will include the simple fix for Flanked malus "fluctuating" depending on the source of Flanked. Stay safe and play some games at home and all that. All best! Edit: Hey @Boeroer, take a look at that? Couldn't get a hold of MaxQuest on Nexus

On one hand Rise of Skywalker was the only Star Wars film of the new trilogy I wasn't bored at some point. On the other that was achieved by cramming three movies worth of stuff happening into an incoherent mess that I only enjoyed so well because The Last Jedi killed the past for me. What we really need is a Star Wars / Transformers crossover directed by Michael "Jar Jar" Baybrams.

While I'm not as negative on the "choices didn't matter in the end" aspect of it, it does strike me as an oddly inconsistent tone with PoE1. PoE1 I thought was fascinating from a world-building perspective, because it was a traditional fantasy world was at the cusp of enlightenment/industrial revolution, as evidenced by the growth of renaissance-era gunplay, revolutionary sentiment in dyrwood, a nascent science (animancy) to replace the more traditional magic, and most relevantly a war in which a literal god was destroyed by a man-made bomb. If a god could be destroyed by man (not to mention the big reveal at the end), it upends all sorts of things in the world, right? It did strike me as odd that noone in Deadfire seems to care that the gods aren't real (I think I've raised this point several times in the past on this forum) and in contrast to what PoE1 was about, there's literally nothing you can do to stop Eothas's mission - you can change the ending slides a bit, but it feels a bit of a cop-out writing-wise. What you did at the end of PoE1 still felt impactful even if it was just mostly ending slides (to the extent that I was annoyed and repeatedly reported as bug that you didn't get Wael's blessing for pledging to do what Wael wanted, even if it only mattered for like the last 15 minutes of the game... it still felt very impactful and important).

While I don't consider Avengers (or any marvel movie really) to be the pinnacle of filmmaking, that is wrong. Time travel IS the pivotal part of the story there - and it is done quite well with the travels back to scenes of the former marvel movies - and also making it clear that altering the timeline splits it up into alternative realities - so you can't just kill baby Thanos in the past and that's it. It's done better than in most contemporary movies with time travelling, excluding Interstellar and Arrival (those I have seen and they handle that time thing very well), but certainly better than in Back to the Future where it's the main part of the story but still wildly nonsensical (but fun for me as a teen nonetheless). I personally don't like time travel too much because it always feels like a loophole and takes away consequence. But saying that its use in Endgame made the former movies pointless (why?) or that writers were lazy is just wrong. This time travel was set up since Ant Man's quantum realm and Dr. Strange's time stone. That doesn't indicate that anybody was lazy or only had one day left to do it. BUT: I totally agree that I don't want to see time travel in PoE3, should it ever come out. It's just stale by now. And I also 100% agree on open world: not worth it in such a game that is supposed to be driven by narrative and character development.

it's missing the 3rd panel in which the man thinks "should i tell them about my master's degree in electrical engineering and how there were no jobs that were hiring so it was this on nothing?"

You also get a .5 Pen per Ability Level -1 of the spell. Fireball should have +1 Pen just from Ability level (Ability Level 3-1=2*.5 pen=1 pen) From Thelee's PL Compilation Thread: Here's an example of the baked in bonuses to Pen you get before you ever add bonus PL (this doesn't include prestige, buffs, etc.). Ability Level AL Pen Bonus MC PL Pen Bonus at 20 SC PL Pen Bonus at 20 MC Total Base Pen Bonus SC total Base Pen Bonus 1 0 1.5 2 1.5 2 2 0.5 1.25 1.75 1.75 2.25 3 1 1 1.5 2 2.5 4 1.5 0.75 1.25 2.25 2.75 5 2 0.5 1 2.5 3 6 2.5 0.25 0.75 2.75 3.25 7 3 0 0.5 3 3.5 8 3.5 0.25 3.75 9 4 0 4 So for a MC Wizard at level 20, that 7 pen Fireball is actually 9 pen before adding any bonus PL or other pen Buffs. Scion takes it to 10. Add 4 PL for 11. Add food or Tenacious for 13. The AL bonus is why higher level spells are better than the low level ones, even with PL scaling. Meteor Shower actually has a base pen of 11 (as well as +16 bonus Accuracy from Ability Level).

I didn't mind the ending, I thought it quite good. It wasen't very fleshed out, sure, but it wasen't not bad, in my opinion. I would love to have the that longer conversation that Sawyer first intended, maybe they will add it again.

It's weird, I feel mixed about the main story and it's ending. I really liked elements about it, but funnily enough I relate to the complaints and observations here way more than I expected. The concept and stuff that was there was really cool, it just felt.. Atrophied? Cut up? I don't know. Also, I think they really had something going with the question, "is it better to act to fix something but potentially cause horrible consequences, or is it better to let horrible things happen and not do /cause something horrible yourself?" They had that with Aloth's quest and touched on it with Eothas and maybe an incy bit with the Watcher. If they had just put more time on that, I think it would have resonated more. Also would have benefited on focusing a little more on the autonomy vs authority theme again. Just because it was kind of already there with Eothas's choice about the wheel and the gods. The themes definitely there already, just felt a little quiet.

PoE was such a somber game. It dealt mostly with a country after war, grief, loss, questioning beliefs. It was rarely about good vs evil, but more like, about authority vs autonomy. How much freedom people should have. Do they need gods as the source of ethics. Is truth ultimately good. It gave me lots to think about and I loved talking about it with my friend. It's like an overall more mature take at a fantasy story, searching for a more intimate perspective, dealing with an universal experience of suffering and death. Deadfire has really nice things about colonization and culture. I seriously liked listening to all those conversations between Huana and Rauatai. But it lacks an emotional core. It doesn't really feel like the Watcher's story even. Watcher experienced their own death and it's not really brought up again. Also their condition as a Watcher isn't fully exploited (not sure how should I word it). You don't see that many ghosts... They could have been more connected to the main story. There isn't a strong recurring theme that could connect the big political plot with the metaphysical. Maybe it could have been more about the world before apocalypse (which you kinda get but only after revelations at Ashen Maw when every faction leader is present at the palace).

I overall agree, except the notion that inability to confront Eothas is a sign of inexperienced writer. There are plenty stories which use protagonist’s inability to interfere to their advantage: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7uSz0mEtEsQ I am less sold on why we are tasked with following Eothas in the first place, and why we are the only person who has an influence toward him. The whole wheel reveal the whole situation more confusing, rather than explaining anything.